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Rhodomyrtus macrocarpa
Also called Cooktown loquat
Rhodomyrtus macrocarpa, commonly known as finger cherry, Cooktown loquat, or wannakai, is a species of plant in the family Myrtaceae native to New Guinea, the Aru Islands, and the Australian state of Queensland. Eating the fruits is reputed to cause blindness.
The plant produces showy flowers and colourful fruit, which would normally earmark it for cultivation as an ornamental, however, this is discouraged due to the potential toxicity of the fruit.
While it is known that the fruit of this species were eaten by Indigenous Australians without ill-effect, there has been a number of well documented incidents involving European settlers eating the fruit which resulted in them becoming permanently blind. The cases usually involved children, and the ingestion of large numbers of fruit. It has been suggested that unripe fruit or a fungal infection in the fruit may be involved, but as of November 2024 no pathogen or constituent compound of the fruit has been identified as being responsible for the loss of sight, and the cause remains a mystery.
Rhodomyrtus effusa · Ironwood · Native Guava · Rhodomyrtus sericea · Rose myrtle · Ironwood · Rhodomyrtus verecunda · Rhodomyrtus
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rhodomyrtus macrocarpa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
